With an aim to change the national conversation from cutting Social Security and Medicare to increasing funding for the programs, the "Eleanor's Hope" project was launched this week with the help of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The project, named after the late former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, held a conference call on Thursday with the Massachusetts Democrat playing a central part, considering she's voiced support for expanding Social Security at a time when some lawmakers are looking to cut or eliminate the program.

"We are on the front edge of a retirement crisis. Social Security has become more of a safety net. Social Security makes a huge difference for all Americans but especially for women," Warren said. "For nearly half of women 65 or older, Social Security is the only thing standing between them and poverty."

Warren explained that since women tend to live longer than men and on the average earn less money for the same jobs performed by men, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to collecting Social Security, which is based on the amount of money one earns during their working life.

"I remember what Social Security meant to my mother after years of minimum wage work," Warren said. "Social Security is about economics, but it is also about our values, and that means protecting and expanding (the program)."

The Social Security program is said to be solvent for the next 20 years without making any changes and is forecast to be able to pay out around 75 percent of benefits in the years after that. Among the changes Warren is backing are a measure to eliminate the provision which makes it so income above $117,000 a year isn't subject to the Social Security tax.

Census data shows that the measure would raise enough money to increase benefits for retired Americans now and in the future, and would only affect 1 in 18 working Americans. The elimination of the cap on the tax would affect even less women- just 1 in 36, considering the gender-based wage disparity which prevails in the United States.

"Many people don't realize Social Security has been expanded ten times since it was established. The last major amendment to Social Security was in 1983, however, and that was a great compromise between President Ronald Regan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill," said James Roosevelt Jr., the president/CEO of the Tufts Health Care plan and the grandson of former president Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. "The program has been caught in gridlock for some time."